Madame Bovary, c’est moi. The phrase, often attributed to Gustave Flaubert, may be better known than any line in his novels. But many scholars consider the remark to be apocryphal. It has trickled down through history thirdhand, first...
Hilton AlsStaff writerIt’s hard to believe that it’s been almost twenty years since I first saw the great director David Cromer’s work. You don’t notice time passing when you’re in the presence of a bona-fide theatrical genius: you...
As Hurricane Milton barrelled toward Florida last month, I taught a three-hour Zoom class and tried not to refresh my phone for updates. I grew up in Florida, and my parents, along with my sister and her family,...
On the morning of Wednesday, November 6th, Donald J. Trump was elected, for the second time, as President of the United States. For the cover of the November 18, 2024, issue, Barry Blitt depicted Trump’s looming silhouette—a reminder...
“Jacob Javits of New York is the first United States senator to become fully automated,” the Chicago Tribune announced in 1962 from the Republican state convention in Buffalo, where an electronic Javits spat out slips of paper with...
In 1921, Charles E. Ives, a wealthy co-proprietor of the New York life-insurance firm Ives & Myrick, launched a bid to rebrand himself as an American Beethoven. He sent copies of his Second Piano Sonata, titled “Concord, Mass.,...
We don’t always get to choose our dining companions. What’s the right move when you’re seated next to a boor at a restaurant to which you’d like to return? —Anonymous, BrooklynHelen, Help Me!E-mail your questions about dining, eating,...
According to the script, the title of the latest play by Dominique Morisseau is “Bad Creole Kreyòl.” We go with the simplified “Bad Kreyòl”—the language of Haiti written in its language, rather than its gallicization—because how can you...
When I think of Dorothy Parker’s hangovers, and I do, the image that comes to mind is that of the U.S.S. Arizona. A sunken battleship resting at the bottom of Pearl Harbor, the Arizona is slowly leaking oil...
It’s commonplace to acknowledge Clint Eastwood as one of the most distinctive and original political filmmakers. What’s surprising about his new film, “Juror #2,” is that the politics it brings to life is essentially, and forcefully, anti-political. It’s...
